WASHINGTON — The Obama administration pulled its ambassador out of Syria over security concerns, blaming President Bashar Assad’s regime for the threats that made it no longer safe for Robert Ford to remain. The Syrian government quickly ordered home its ambassador to the United States, raising the diplomatic stakes.
Ford traveled to Washington this weekend after the U.S. received “credible threats against his personal safety in Syria,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Monday. Ford has been the subject of several instances of intimidation by pro-government thugs and has angered Syrian authorities with his forceful defense of peaceful protests and harsh critique of a government crackdown that has now claimed more than 3,000 lives.
“We hope that the Syrian regime will end its incitement campaign against Ambassador Ford,” Toner said. “At this point, we can’t say when he will return to Syria.”
Toner said the U.S. Embassy will remain open in Damascus and that the threats were specifically directed toward Ford. His return is conditional on a U.S. “assessment of Syrian regime-led incitement and the security situation on the ground,” Toner said.
In an immediate response, Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha promptly left the U.S. on Monday, said Roua Shurbaji, a Syrian Embassy spokesman. She said no other steps were being taken by the embassy and declined to comment on the U.S. allegations.
Fo r d wa s t h e f i r s t American ambassador to Syria since 2005. President George W. Bush’s administration withdrew a full-time ambassador from Syria over charges the country was involved in terrorism and the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The Obama administration decided to return an ambassador to Syria earlier this year in an effort to persuade Syria to change its policies regarding Israel, Lebanon, Iraq and support for extremist groups. Syria is designated a “state sponsor of terrorism” by the State Department.
Although Ford’s appointment in January, while the Senate was out of session, was originally criticized by some Republicans in Congress, he has won praise within the administration and beyond for his determination to meet Syrian opposition leaders in a hostile environment, and tough criticism of Assad’s regime’s brutal military response to mass demonstrations.
The Senate unanimously approved Ford’s nomination earlier this month, with Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., praising Ford for continuing to visit cities under siege and “speak truth to power.”
Ford was greeted by demonstrators with roses and cheers when he traveled to the restive city of Hama in July, prompting immediate recriminations from the Syrian government, which tried to then limit where Ford could travel. Only days later hundreds of regime supporters attacked the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, smashing windows and spray-painting obscenities on the walls.
Ford also has been the subject of several reports of intimidation by pro-government thugs, often in coordination with pro-Assad media capturing the humiliation. Media reports said Ford was hit last week with eggs and tomatoes while going to a mosque in Damascus.
The U.S. last month decried Ford’s treatment as “unwarranted and unjustifiable,” after Assad supporters tried to force their way into a meeting he was having with a prominent opposition figure. Syrian police were slow in responding, and Ford was trapped inside the building for about three hours. But White House press secretary James Carney insisted at the time that the U.S. had no plans to remove Ford for his safety.
Haynes Mahoney, the embassy’s deputy chief of mission, confirmed that Ford has left Syria but said Washington hadn’t formally recalled him — a symbolically significant diplomatic step.
Toner lamented that the threats deprived the United States of a valuable emissary to the Syrian people at a time when they face daily violence from Assad’s security forces.
Meanwhile, Syrian security forces killed at least six people in Homs on Monday, while government troops clashed with gunmen believed to be defectors from the military in several parts of the country, killing five including a Syrian soldier, activists said.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes Monday pitting Syrian troops against army defectors left casualties on both sides, but there was no precise death toll. Most of the fighting occurred in Houla, which is made up of several villages in the Homs province.
About 25 miles away in Homs, security forces killed six people, the observatory said. Syria’s third-largest city, Homs has seen some of the most severe violence in the past months.
At least five others were killed in clashes in the northern Idlib province, where defectors are also believed to be active. They included a Syrian soldier and his son, and a man whose car was targeted by a rocket-propelled grenade.
Also Monday, the leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said the embattled Syrian regime is largely “out of the danger zone” despite the 7-month-old uprising against the Assad regime.
“Is Syria out of danger? We can say, to a very large extent, yes,” Sheik Hassan Nasrallah told Hezbollah’s Manar TV station.
The uprising in Syria has posed a serious problem for Hezbollah, which has largely supported the Arab uprisings as genuine revolutions because Hezbollah considers the now-deposed leaders of Egypt, Tunisia and even Libya as too close to the United States and the West.
Syria prides itself for being a bastion of resistance against the U.S. and Israel and has lionized Hezbollah.
Since the uprising, however, Syrians have unleashed their anger at Hezbollah over its blunt support for the regime. Some protesters have set fire to the yellow flag of Hezbollah and pictures of Nasrallah.
On Monday, Nasrallah stressed that Assad has significant support in Syria. Assad’s main base at home includes Syrians who have benefited financially from the regime, minority groups who feel they will be targeted if the Sunni majority takes over, and others who see no clear and safe alternative to Assad.
The opposition has yet to bring out the middle and upper-middle classes in Damascus and Aleppo, the two economic powerhouses, although protests have been building.
Information for this article was contributed from Beirut by Bassem Mrou and Zeina Karam, and from Damascus, Syria, by Albert Aji of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 10/25/2011